Premier League introduces Extra Access to players. But will we even notice?

We will be seeing some innovations in the 2025/26 season and there is no doubt that the broadcasters will be pitching them as “revolutionary.”  Not because they are, but because that is what broadcasters do.   I’ve not seen too much about this yet in the ever-slow-to-react English media, but the media in Europe are already having quite a laugh about the way football in England is crawling forward.

And a closer look makes one wonder why on earth anyone is bothering with what is being described within the broadcasting business as “extra access.”

Now the first thing to note is that it is going to happen very rarely – each of the 20 Premier League clubs will be involved with “extra access” twice in the entire season, and on each occasion it will only involve the home club.   And the process cannot be allowed to disrupt the regular half-time routines of the players. 

Of course, this sort of thing has been happening in leagues elsewhere for quite a while, but it appears the Premier League TV companies are going to promote it as a revolution.   But if it is a revolution, it is a very strange revolution because it is in fact a revolution run entirely by a rulebook.  The barricades have not been stormed.

First off, the TV company covering the event has to reach an agreement with the club involved no later than 24 hours before the kick-off off whether or not a player can be interviewed, and if so, which player.  This will be done by the TV station, providing a list of five names to the club, and the club then decide a) if any of these can be interviewed, and if so, which one.

But even then the broadcaster won’t have free reign because the broasdcaster must only ask positive questions and the questions can only pertain to the day’s game – not about anything in the background, not about players who are missing, certainly not about the referee, not about the opposition, and not about the crowd (unless it is to thank them for their magnificent support) but only about positive aspects of the game.

However, the trouble is, it seems there is no agreement as to what a positive question is.  For example is “Do you think you can get better in the second half?” is positive in relation to the second half, but it also implies the first half was awful.

So what about if the home side is losing 1-3 at halftime – how do you turn that into a positive?   Presumably, with a “Will you be able to turn this around?” question, to which the answer is obviously going to be “yes”, which makes the whole process rather pointless.

We are also told there can be interviews in the changing room of various Premier League clubs, with each club again being subjected to such an event twice a season.   Except that clubs will be able to decline this – and indeed other aspects of the immediate post-match interview, if they have been defeated.    And even then, the rules say that “both parties must ensure that the content is positive and not controversial.”

Which of course means no one must ask a question about, and no one must talk in an answer about, the referee.  Also, it is unlikely that anything about tactics will be discussed since that of course, could be immediately relayed to the opposition’s bench, who can then change their tactics immediately to counteract the development.

Except that the team interviewed could actually give false information to mislead the opposition as in, “Yes Brian we shall be using three at the back and Jacko will be playing on his own up front” when the actual tactical approach is nothing of the sort.

Questioned after, the coach will say, “That was how we intended to play, but then on seeing what the opposition were talking about in their pre-match TV interview, we realised that there was a better way to counteract their approach so we moved over to play B.  But this happened after we had done our interview with you, so what we said in the interview was true at the time – we just changed it a bit later.”

There has very occasionally been something akin to this in matches, where, for example, forwards line up with player X on the left and player Y on the right, but then they swap positions after a couple of minutes in order to confuse the full backs.

Indeed, this could just be confusion taken to another level.  Although given the way most TV reporters seem bemused by the whole event, if another level of confusion is added, we might not even notice.

Perhaps the saddest point in all this is that none of this applies to the referees or his/her assistants.   Unlike much of the rest of Europe, they remain secretive and cossetted behind a set of extremely well-closed doors and must not be approached in any circumstances at all.